The Letter

A meeting was held the other day where one of the topics of discussion was how to deal with conflict between moms when it arises. The final outcome was that everyone believed there should never be anonymous letters. And many are still shocked and stunned that this happened to me. I have felt a lot of love.

Here is the letter that was read at the meeting...

Dear Friends,

I apologize for my inability to attend this meeting. But my son has his school Christmas party and presentation. Since he assures me that he will actually sing, I dare not miss it. I have asked K to read this letter so you can more fully understand this issue which has become so important to me.

I am sure that you are all aware by now that two letters were written complaining about me and handed to S when she was the president of MOMS Club. Those letters were not dealt with and were simply handed over to K when she took leadership. I have no issues with how K or the current board handled the situation nor do I have any issues with MOMS Club in general.

My concern is that there is the ability for members within the club to write anonymous letters complaining about one another. These letters questioned my ability to parent and nitpicked at everything I did or didn’t do over a period of a month and a half. By writing an anonymous letter, all the writer did was make me question every person in the club. I can’t tell you how many nights I woke up and raced to my computer to pull up an Evite, questioning, “Was it her?” I literally have looked over the roster at least a hundred times. It’s not fair to me and it’s certainly not fair to the club in general.

I want it to be clear that I am not the first mom who has had anonymous complaint letters written about her. This has happened in the past. The last mom it happened to chose to leave the club. And I can only assume that this was the intent of the letters written about me. This deeply saddens me. Our club is supposed to be about supporting one another but with all the recent events, we certainly do not need more to divide us. I had to take a step back and evaluate what was important to me and it became clear that so many of you make up that which has become important in my life. As a result, I’m not going anywhere.

We are from various backgrounds and are going to raise our children differently as a result. My desire is to see us respect one another and be able to talk about these differences as they arise.

I hope that my legacy to MOMS Club is that we have a new-found respect for one another. And that we truly are able to support each other.

Much love to all!
Identity Mixed

P.S. Any little boys can come pee in my yard anytime.

Happy Birthday Jesus

The Wendy's in our town has "Happy Birthday Jesus" posted on their large marquis out front. Aside from being curious if corporate has any clue, I have a variety of feelings about this.

We have only lived in this region of the country for a year and a half. We moved from Liberal East Coast to conservative Appalachia. It is a BIG jump. So many things that are said and done here startle me... much like the Wendy's sign. That would not have been seen in our former LEC residence. And I would have been ok with that!

I saw this sign last year and was horrified. Wendy's. Have your burger, love the lord? Does anyone else see the incongruence here? Maybe it's just me.

But I thought maybe all the "newness" of the region was why random things like this bothered me. Was I just not used to it due to our ten years in a different spot? I thought I'd give all this stuff a year to sink in and then decide if it bothered me.

So this year, when the sign went up, I reflected a bit more. Yup. Still offensive.

At church Wednesday night in our small group, I brought it up. Some people agreed with me. Those who did not, I think at least saw my point.

And my point is... Christmas is so sacred to me. The birth of our Savior. There is a feeling this time of the year that I have. With all the hustle and bustle of shopping, decorating, baking, worrying... there is a peace that I feel. And it is Christmas.

Preparing for a birth is stressful. I have done it twice. The last time, I was cleaning out my refrigerator just a mere 8 hours before the pitocin drip was attached to my IV. I can imagine Mary trying to fluff the hay for a nice place for her sweet baby to lay. And Joseph pacing, thinking "What in the world have I gotten myself in to?" Stress, yet the beauty of your life changing. Sometimes stress can be positive.

The irony is, I don't recall this Wendy's having "He has risen!" or anything like that on their sign at Eastertime. I think that is part of it for me too. We need the whole package...

You get me?

There... I Said It

I have always had Foot in Mouth Disease. No matter what crowd I am in, I find a way to make an ass out of myself over what I say. It's either that I say the wrong thing at the wrong time or I say something I really shouldn't say. Part of it, I am sure is that I always had this inferiority complex that my opinion was not valid. So if I would say something controversial, I would not have enough self-esteem to step up and argue my point or defend myself in any way.

This has changed.

Somehow over the past few years, my skin has toughened and I have better learned how to express myself. I have found myself in many situations where I have (amazingly) been right! So a gradual change occured where I began to find more confidence and I began to say things that I would have said in the past but then been overly embarrassed about. I am no longer embarrassed. I am willing to put out there who I am and I am confident enough in myself that if others don't agree with me, I don't feel like an ass.

So I have increasingly had moments where I ended the conversation with, "There... I said it." And I have been satisfied that the opinion is out there... for all to see.

Case in point:

There is a white mini van parked at my son's preschool every day. And every day, I pass it when I am leaving. And every day, I get pissed off. It has a bumper sticker on the back that says, "Marriage Yes! One Man, One Woman."

Yucky.

I let it go for about a year. And finally I decided... I know my son's teachers well enough to know that it is probably not their van. And if it is, they would not treat my son any different if my opinion differs from theirs.

So I said it. Sat down by one of the teachers one day and said, "Who is it who drives the highly offensive white van." She laughed loudly. One other teacher within earshot grinned ear to ear. The other teacher in the room slammed her fist on the desk and exclaimed, "Thank you! Aren't you disgusted by that? Don't you wish your life was perfect?" And went on and on.

Turns out that this van is driven by the lunch lady. I already got the gist that she was not someone I would enjoy spending time with anyway. She reminds me of a girl we went to college with who was never happy. We nicknamed her "Pissface." Still not sure of her real name. But the lunch lady could quite possibly be Pissface's Grandma.

And now, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday when I drop my son off and drive around the building to the exit, instead of being pissed off, I laugh. I said it. And I found comrades.

Pretty nice feeling.